


Stendhal Syndrome

by RainingColours



Category: Persona 5
Genre: Experimental Style, Inspiration, M/M, Muses, One-Sided Attraction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-26
Updated: 2016-02-26
Packaged: 2018-05-23 06:52:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,109
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6108574
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RainingColours/pseuds/RainingColours
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>the scent of leather, </p><p>the clack of his heels, </p><p>cherry red hands.</p><p>These were the attributes that he first noticed. Then, came the </p><p> </p><p>Glittering eyes</p><p>face of stone</p><p>oh, and the crooked, crooked smile.</p><p> </p><p>He was beautiful.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Stendhal Syndrome

the scent of leather,

 

the _clack_ of his heels,

 

cherry red hands.

 

These were the attributes that he first noticed. Then, came the

 

 

Glittering eyes

 

face of stone

 

oh, and the crooked, crooked smile.

 

 

He was _beautiful_.

 

* * *

 

 

Kitagawa Yusuke thrived. There were no other words to describe how he felt. He was in a frenzy to capture the lingering images, sensations, _everything_ of the fortuitous meeting of the night before. There was absolutely no way he could, _would_ ever forget.

He had hit a wall, a horrendous block in his inspirations

 

-liar-

 

and had completely stopped his ongoing projects. He couldn't bear how they might look, how they could look, how they would look once he finished them.

People always complimented his work, but always, always, always, said

 

"-exquisite! But... it really seems familiar-"

 

"-this is incredible, but I'm sure I have seen this piece before-"

 

"-magnificent, but somehow..."

 

He could practically hear them. All of them. Liars poised with their fancy suits, glazed poison in their lips, hidden daggers beneath smiles, and smug eyes behind raised flutes.

There was nothing more infuriating and agonizing than listening to those comments. Did he know that his art was an imitation? Yes, he did. After all, his paintings were displayed, his creations were dissected, and _his_ _art_ was being preyed upon by the onlookers. He himself would be painfully reminded of that fact, every time he passed by his atelier, and saw the unfinished canvases, smelled the pungent scent of drying paint, or heard the flutter of the cloth covering his past works. The word _imitation_ followed him everywhere, just like an unseen noose around his neck, a bind chaining his arms, and a weight slowing down his fingers.

 

Oh.

 

He relaxed his hand, which was practically crushing the brush. He looked down at it. The paint had dripped down the bristle and onto the handle, and his hands had been coated with indistinguishable shades of blacks, blues, and grays.

 

-That's why he had stopped painting. He couldn't deal with the growing weight of implications of what that could mean. He knew that his paints were pale shadows of the original ones. And he knew that better than anyone. But without his art, what else did he have left? He couldn't draw anymore now that he was always confronted with the uncomfortable aspect of his art. Fakefakefakefake-

 

So it was truly a marvel that this strange encounter had immediately set his dead embers of inspiration roaring to life again.

 

Brushstroke after brushstroke, followed by the splash of black, and he could almost feel the maniacal smile that was rising on his face. The shape in front of him started coming to life, with the nimble hands dripping with carmine red, the spread of his dark clothes like wings preparing to soar, and the sharp white on that picturesque mask. He felt laughter bubbling at the back of his throat, and squashed it immediately. It would not do to get caught red-handed while painting, when only this morning, he had brusquely refused to paint a commission at the face of an offended client. However, he did let the grin stretch a little bit wider in his face. He was in a frenzy; his stomach fluttered every time his brush painted another line, and his chest hammered every time the colour gave life to that porcelain face.

 

He was unstoppable.

  

* * *

 

He finally dropped the brush. It clattered and rolled away, leaving a ribbon of bright red on the pristine floor. He didn't care that the remaining paint had stained his white gakuran. He didn't care that he had splattered paint to his half-done commissions next to his current creation. He didn't care that he was breathing hard, or that his hands were trembling, or that his head spun.

 

He had finished.

 

There, in front of him, the strange being he met a day ago was leaping into the night, with the bloated moon hanging on the sky. His wicked grin was in place, he could hear the _clack!_ of the being's heels when he made the jump, and most definitely, he could imagine the reflection of the moonlight on the sharp grey eyes gazing out into the darkness.

 

Finally, after a long time gazing at the being, Yusuke got closer to the painting, leaned in, and breathed out,

 

"Thank you."

 

He had never felt more alive.

  

* * *

 

After that, it was a dive-in into a creative period again. It was as if his hand refused to settle down, and continued to create, create, _create_.

His teacher was pleased, thinking that Yusuke had gotten back his artistic inspiration. Of course, the whispers, concealed smirks, and derisive snorts behind bejeweled hands did not disappear, but Yusuke was content. For the first time, he did not feel the clamp of dread weighting his shoulders down when he looked at his paintings. For the first time, he did not feel ashamed of his own creations. And for the first time, he could sincerely smile to the fake compliments thrown to his artwork.

 

Nobody knew of a certain portrait hidden between the niche of his collections.

  

* * *

 

It had been months since that strange, almost fantastic encounter, and Yusuke was unsatisfied. He had believed that he had found his one /muse/ to his inspirations, the drive to continue, but... something was missing. He felt restless. He had drawn, painted, and carved, but that almost trance-like feeling, the almost Dionysian side of his inspiration had never come back. The sweaty palms, burning veins, thundering heart were gone. What was it? Passion? Insight? Revelation? He didn't know.

And yet, hoping to find _it_ again, he had stared at the portrait for a long time, between lesson breaks, during daybreak, at the cusp of dusk. Today too, he was gloomily staring at his _creation_ , hoping to feel at least once more, and-

 

This wasn't right.

 

Now that he checked again, the moon was too crooked.

 

The smile was too distorted.

 

The eyes were wrong.

 

His eyes were _wrong_.

 

Yusuke urgently picked up the portrait, and brought it closer to his face, scrutinizing the painting.

There was no mistaking it. He had gotten the shade of _his_ eyes wrong. Also the colours had smeared, the angle of _his_ jaw was unnatural, and the lightning of the entire picture felt too stiff.

 

How could he have missed this?

 

With a calmness that he didn't really feel, he rummaged through his brush set, popped open the cap of the paint, mixed it appropriately on the palette, and immediately started working on fixing those mistakes.

How could he have missed this? He didn't know, and his hand worked frantically to cover up the blemishes, distortions, and the _wrongness_ of the piece. Was this correct? No. He started again. Was it now? No. He covered another spot.

After several minutes of painting, and repainting everything again, he set down his brush.

 

This was just _wrong_.

 

The figure in his painting was no longer distinguishable. This was not the ephemeral being he met a few months ago. This was... This was... a cruel mockery of what _he_ was.

 

Disgust and anger flared in him.

 

He grabbed the brush again, and with excessive force, he jabbed the bristle into the paint. His palette lay forgotten, and Yusuke directly started smearing the entirety of the pots of paint onto the canvas. The coat looked wrong. The moon was different. The shadows hadn't looked like this.

 

 _He_ didn't look like this.

 

"This... Is...Not... Him!"

 

He dropped everything, and clutched the still dripping canvas.

 

The figure was no longer _him_.

Instead, it was an angry blotch of red, disgusting black, and worn-out whites.

 

What _was_ this?

 

He threw the canvas to the floor, where it landed with a disgusting squelch. Yusuke shuddered. With a sharp inhale, he closed his eyes.

It wouldn't do to lose his head like this.

 

-But you already have-

 

Deep breaths. He concentrated. His left eyelid pulsed. His hands felt cold. Paint dripped from his fingertips. The acrid scent of the paint. The distant horn of the traffic. The warmth of the setting summer sun. Breathe.

 

He opened his eyes. He felt a lot calmer. When he looked around, he saw that he had made a mess out of his atelier. It was as if a storm had passed by.

There were stains everywhere, and added to the fallen canvases, brushes, oils, pastels, and the half opened lid of paints that had been knocked over were slowly oozing out of their containers, it was chaos.

 

And most of all, the _thing_ was in the middle of everything. It was as if a murder had taken place right there in the middle of all that chaos.  The red paint that had been still fresh when he threw the canvas away had spattered into a grotesque mess around the painting.

 

A murder.

 

Yes, a murder.

 

Yusuke had murdered his muse with his own hands.

 

He buried his face in his hands.

 

A choked "I'm sorry" escaped his lips.

 

But only silence answered.

  

* * *

 

Everything was dull again. He was not painting again. If his teacher had noticed, he hadn't commented on it. He spent hours blankly staring the opposite wall of the atelier. What was the point? He couldn't find the burning inspiration again.

The electrifying jolt down his spine. The thrill thrumming through his hands. The ticklish vertigo on his stomach. His heart hammering in his chest.

 

They were all gone.

 

With a sigh, he stood up. He needed air. A change of scenery. Anything to relieve himself of this horrendous listlessness that he had fallen into.

 

* * *

 

He came back with a start. Apparently, he had been walking in a trance, and on autopilot, his feet had directed him to the bench he was currently sitting on.

Funny how even subconsciously he would seek the most colourful place in the city.

The park was a vibrant green, except for the occasional white nameless flowers that would interrupt the verdant sea. The cicadas chirped, the other occupants of the park were in high spirits, and the hubbub of the city seemed distant. 

He fanned himself. The white shirt he was wearing was sticky and damp due to the sweltering summer heat, and he had left his handkerchief on the backpack back in the atelier. Obviously.

 

Yusuke sighed again. This was not helping at all.

He got up from the bench, and started walking again, but this time, towards the cacophony of the city.

 

How long had he been walking? He checked his cell phone. '3:47' blinked back at him. Only 20 minutes. He was zoning out again, and this walk had been less productive than he expected.

 

What was he thinking?  That a walk would give him back the inspiration that he had lost? It was stupid of him. Stupid, didn't think-

 

He almost collided with someone. He didn't have energy to apologize, and he could already feel the sneer forming in his face.

 

"Watch it! Not everyone has time for-"

 

His words died on his lips as he found the offender.

 

At first glance, the other boy didn't seem like much. With unruly black hair, unassuming face, dull glasses, the other student (if the emblem of 'Shujin High Scool' on his lapel was anything to go by) was the epitome of 'normal'. Yusuke would have never been able to single him out in a crowd. But behind the glasses, sharp eyes stared back at him.

 

Sharp, mischievous, _knowing_ eyes. 

 

Yusuke's breath stopped.

 

It was _him_.

 

There was no mistaking it. It was as if time had slowed down around Yusuke. Stunned, he could do nothing but gape at the stranger.

 

Was it a stranger? It was _him_. The dark figure that had become his one and only muse. Yusuke felt as if he knew the other person for an eternity now. What- How- When-

What he would say? What could he say?

Yusuke, for the second time in his life, was speechless. His mind was a babble of incoherent, half-formed sentences, and the stare felt like an eternity.

 

Finally, the othermuse! _him_ STUDENT  smiled apologetically, nodded once, and continued on his way. Yusuke was rooted in his place, his mind refusing to move his body, and his heart beating against his ribcage urging him to give chase. His eyes followed the other student until his dark mop of hair disappeared in the crowd and finally, finally, Finally! Yusuke came to himself, and immediately sprinted down the crosswalk, trying to follow.

 

 

And when he finally caught up to the other boy still smiling secretively in _understanding_ ,

 

 

Yusuke felt alive again.

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Hello and welcome to my first contribution to the Persona 5 fandom! The game isn't out yet, and I'm already writing fanfiction about them haha. 
> 
> Did I mention that I ship Protag-kun with absolutely everybody? Because I do. He is like that ONE condiment that goes well with everything. I absolutely adore him. And for some reason, I imagine Yusuke as a very sensory person.
> 
> Stendhal Syndrome (known as hyperkulturemia coughtoomuchcultureinthebloodcough) is a syndrome in which one feels dizziness, rapid heartbeat, even fainting after being exposed to art. 
> 
> Which is totally what Yusuke has here.
> 
> Any grammar mistake corrections are welcome, and given the style experimentation, I wouldn't be surprised if everything is corrected. That, and the fact that ao3 refuses to acknowledge that those paragraphs were not unevenly spaced, and refuses to be fixed.
> 
> I hope you have enjoyed, and leave a kudos!


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